The boom in influencer marketing means that there are more and more companies dedicated to their fraud. Identifying this fact is essential for a brand since its reputation, economy and growth are at stake.
The content marketing agency La Caja Company has developed a guide on fake influencers with the keys to knowing how to identify and avoid them.
Ever since influencer marketing became a great discipline within marketing and ever since brands use it more and more as a strategy that can provide a high ROI in their crusades, countless cheats and misleading forces to be reckoned with have multiplied. It’s a fact: not all the influencers we find on social networks are authentic.
Still, only 40% of active content creators globally are free from various forms of fraud such as buying followers, paid comments, etc.
The content marketing agency La Caja Company develops ten keys to detect influencer fraud.
Automated bots
Mechanized bots are a sort of force to be reckoned with in advertising misrepresentation. These bots are robotized programs for loving, sharing, and remarking. These users often use them to increase the metrics on their posts, to give the appearance that they have an active community. Be that as it may, the commitment they give isn’t genuine.
Purchase of followers
It is perhaps the most used and well-known method since it has been shown that it is possible to buy followers for very little money. Fraud consists of the purchase of a certain number of followers to make a profile appear to have a community with a large number of followers. It is important to note that profiles that have purchased followers fail to get a good engagement rate. An Instagram profile with 100,000 followers, but approximately 10-20 likes per post is a clear example of a fake profile.
Engagement groups
Engagement groups are people who come together in groups to exchange likes, comments, and followers. In this way, they create the illusion of having real interactions. Even though they are real people and not bots, such interactions have no real value for influencer fraud. Let’s remember that what makes an influential person relevant in social networks is their relationship with their community. Using this kind of group is a trick that, although it is detected, is a reason to undermine the credibility of said influencer.
Company reputation
Being the victim of a fake influencer fraud can bring with it very serious consequences that go beyond economic loss. Hiring a fake influencer can affect the reputation of the company and damage the trust of its target audience. And is that, if the audience finds out that the company has joined a fake account, they could doubt the credibility of the products, services, and brand.
Ignorance of the brand
Powerhouse extortion has turned into a significant gamble factor for brands and organizations. Which need to advance their items or administrations through forces to be reckoned with.
The main reason why brands “fall” for this type of fraud is not knowing how to recognize a fake influencer. To avoid this, it is recommended to request references about the influencer fraud, investigate their audience, ask the professional for data and statistics, and use specialized tools to analyze the profile data.
Look for signs that alarm a fraud
If there is little relationship between the number of followers and the number of interactions on the influencer’s profile, it sets off alarms. A true influencer relates to his audience through interactions, and this is evidenced through likes, comments, reproductions, shared posts, etc.
Although not all followers react or engage with every influencer post, the ratio of the number of followers to engagement on the profile account reflects their authenticity. An average interaction ratio would be for every 1,000 followers, between 40 and 50 likes or views per post.
The fast increase in followers
Building an active community takes time and a real influencer invests efforts and resources to grow their presence. Perhaps going viral or having a sudden spike in popularity can boost how fast your follower count grows. But this is not typical. Fake influencer fraud profiles don’t need to build relationships or grow their accounts with effort. Although can experience rapid growth through buying followers. Therefore, the accounts that have been created recently but boast a high number of followers are mostly fake profiles.
The crowd doesn’t share anything for all intents and purposes with the powerhouse
The crowd of the profile doesn’t share anything for all intents and purposes or the powerhouse. Which is situated in a space of the world that doesn’t have anything to do with their supporters.
For instance, a powerhouse who is from Spain. However with adherents principally in Russia or Saudi Arabia, and so forth, is quite often a phony record.
Verify the influencer’s trajectory
Take a look at your set of experiences to perceive how long you have been posting. Also, check to assume that you have profiles on other informal communities and the number of devotees you have in every one of them. In addition, it is worth researching the brands with which you have previously worked.
Another recommendation is to search for their username on Google, this also applies to micro-influencers. Assuming you Google a force to be reckoned with name and nothing comes up, suspect just awful.
Look for warning signs in each social network
We should consider a few explicit signs of every interpersonal organization that is utilized. If it’s Instagram, pay attention to the quality of photos, videos, and stories. A phony profile won’t put resources into quality photographs, won’t keep a feed with significant substance, or use hashtags as indicated by the topic.
If it is YouTube, it analyzes the number of views, the ratio between “likes” and “dislikes” of their videos, as well as the type of comments from their followers.